i was a columnist for year s at the new york daily news. john avalon, an editor and columnist as well. we wanted to have something like this. we were shocked when we found out that it didn't exist. we would ask some of the older guys and you might fall into that category, frankly, but we would ask people, who were the great columnists. jack newfield, we asked him, jimmy breslin, these guys, and they would call out these names and we would find out this stuff was out of print, you couldn't find it. we realized we need to grab hold of this stuff before it all gets lost in a maze of twitter and social media. >> i'm curious, is there any connective tissue between the folks that you chose in terms of what makes a great columnist. was there anything they all do? >> if you wanted to sort of boil it down to elements, first of all, they're all on deadlines, hence the name "deadline artist." it matters. we really try to find stuff that is right on deadline. you're writing in 800 words so it has to be punchy. these are people who put themselves on the